From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Adulterants are chemical substances which should not
be contained within other substances (eg. food, beverages, fuels for legal or other reasons). Adulterants may
be intentionally added to more expensive substances to increase
visible quantities and reduce manufacturing costs, or for some
other deceptive or malicious purpose. Adulterants may also be
accidentally or unknowingly introduced into substances. The
addition of adulterants is called adulteration.

The word is only appropriate when the additions are unwanted by
the recipient, otherwise the expression would be food additive.
Adulterants when used in illicit drugs are called cutting agents,
while deliberate addition of toxic adulterants to food or other
products for human consumption is known as poisoning.

Adulterant usage was first investigated in 1820 by the German chemist Frederick Accum, who identified many toxic
metal colorings in food and drink. His work antagonized food
suppliers, and he was ultimately discredited by a scandal over his
alleged mutilation of Royal Institution library books. The
physician Arthur Hill Hassall later conducted
extensive studies in the early 1850s, which were published in The Lancet and led to the
1860 Food Adulteration Act and subsequent further legislation.[3]

At the turn of the twentieth century, industrialization in the
United States saw an uprise in adulteration and this inspired some
protest. Accounts of adulteration led the New York Evening Post to
parody:

Mary had a little lamb,
And when she saw it sicken,
She shipped it off to Packingtown,
And now it's labeled chicken.[4]

However, even back in the 1700s, people recognized adulteration
in food:

"The bread I eat in London is a deleterious paste, mixed up with
chalk, alum and bone ashes, insipid to the taste and destructive to
the constitution. The good people are not ignorant of this
adulteration; but they prefer it to wholesome bread, because it is
whiter than the meal of corn [wheat]. Thus they sacrifice their
taste and their health. . . to a most absurd gratification of a
misjudged eye; and the miller or the baker is obliged to poison
them and their families, in order to live by his profession." -
Tobias Smollet, The Expedition of Humphrey Clinker
(1771)[5]

A complete history of food poisoning and adulteration is found
in the textbook, Death in the Pot: The Impact of Food Poisoning
on History.[6][2]

Notable incidents of
adulteration

In 1997, ConAgra
Foods pled guilty to federal criminal charges that one of its
units illegally sprayed water on stored grain to increase its
weight and value.[8]

In 2007, samples of wheat gluten mixed with melamine, presumably to
produce artificially inflated results from common tests for protein
content, were discovered in many U.S. pet food brands, as well as in human food
supply. The adulterated gluten was found to have come from China,
and U.S. authorities concluded that its origin was the Xuzhou
Anying Biologic Technology Development Company, a Xuzhou, China-based company. (See: Chinese protein export
contamination.)

In 2008, significant portions of China's milk supply were found to have been contaminated
with melamine. Infant formula produced from
melamine-tainted milk killed at least six children and were
believed to have harmed thousands of others. (See: 2008 Chinese milk
scandal.)